Out Here in the Darkness
by burnmedown
Summary: Clay is bleeding. He can't find his team. And in the frigid Mongolian night, the wolves are closing in.
1. Cold Upon the Mountain

Here's my story for day two of SEAL Team Week.

Prompts used: Clay, trapped

Story title from _Far From Home (The Raven)_ by Sam Tinnesz; chapter title from _I Followed Fires_ by Matthew and the Atlas.

This was supposed to be a short one-shot, but didn't cooperate. The second and final chapter will be posted by the end of the day.

* * *

Out here in the darkness  
And out of the light  
If you get to me too late  
Just know that I tried

-_Far From Home (The Raven),_ by Sam Tinnesz

* * *

When Clay looks behind him, he sees blood in the snow.

He isn't completely sure where it came from, but figures the source was probably him. There's not a lot of pain right now, mostly just numbness, but he thinks he remembers something bad happening. Recalls losing his footing and falling into blankness, an endless expanse of white.

After that, his memory blinks out and there's a gap. Next thing he remembers is just now, standing in the feathered shade of a conifer, looking back at a trail of footprints surrounded by dribbles of fresh blood as vivid as berries on the surface of the snow.

The sun is still up but hangs low over the mountains, casting long, distorted blue shadows. Evening is close. After it will come night, and night means cold even more intense than this.

Urgency pushes at Clay like phantom hands. He needs to get moving. Needs to go... somewhere. Doesn't remember where.

Is his team here? Where is _here?_

He tries to take a step forward, but the world does a sickening flip and he stumbles, only a last-second grab at a tree branch keeping him from falling. He stares at his gloved hand, finally realizing that he's wearing full winter gear, without which he'd surely be a lot worse off. Even with it, he can feel himself shivering.

Regaining his footing, Clay lets go of the tree, lowers his hand, and watches dumbly as a slow, steady trickle of blood drips off the fingertips of his glove.

Well, that's one question answered, at least.

He rotates his arm until he finds the gash that cut straight through all three layers of clothing and into the flesh beneath. The wound is just above his elbow, and it's deep. At least the bleeding isn't arterial; if it were, he'd probably already be dead.

What did this? A knife maybe, but it could also have been a sharp rock, if his blurred memory of falling is accurate. Blood loss may help explain some of the confusion; a head injury probably accounts for the rest. Even the fading sunlight cuts into Clay's eyes like a blade, and the horizon seems to keep tilting. His temples throb with each heartbeat.

_Focus,_ he tells himself. _What's the priority here?_

Stopping the bleeding. Finding shelter. Making contact with his guys if possible, because a rescue would be really nice right about now.

It occurs to Clay to check for a radio, but he doesn't seem to have one. He's wearing a balaclava but no helmet, which means no helmet strobe.

On his own, then. No easy way to reach out for help - and with zero idea where he is or what enemy forces could be in the area, he doesn't dare send up an obvious signal, like smoke, that might draw the wrong kind of attention. At least not until it's his absolute last resort.

Clay has a feeling that stripping down in this kind of cold, when he's already shivering, probably wouldn't be the best idea, so he ends up just widening the tear in the fabric over the wound until he can get in there and apply a pressure bandage. Then he wraps extra layers of gauze over the top to try to shield the gash and surrounding skin from exposure to the subzero air.

After the sun drops below the mountains, it doesn't take long for the light to start fading from the sky. Head throbbing, Clay pushes on, afraid of what will happen if he stops moving. The air grows so cold that every breath sears his lungs.

In the last of the pale twilight, he glances behind him and realizes half the footprints he's leaving are rimmed in pink. That's when he finally registers that the dull throb in his calf must be from something more than just muscle cramps or bruising.

He's still bleeding.

That discovery takes on a whole new dimension when Clay hears the wolves.

Fuck. _He's_ _still bleeding_.

He's been leaving a blood trail this entire time. And while he knows humans aren't generally wolves' preferred prey, he doubts a hungry, hunting pack will pass up the opportunity to pursue a clearly wounded and weakened target. No way he's that lucky.

As the eerie, hollow chorus of howls rises from the sparse forest behind him, Clay locks down the fear, the age-old instinct telling him to _run,_ and tries to force his scrambled brain to think through the situation logically.

The trees around him now are mostly spindly, wind-cowed conifers with branches nowhere near strong enough to support his weight. He vaguely remembers seeing bigger, sturdier trees back where he came from, but doesn't think he could reach them in time, especially since trying would require going _toward_ the howls.

So, climbing a tree is out. What else does he have to work with?

Besides his knife, his only weapon is a Glock, with little extra ammo. Fighting is also not an option.

He has no NODs or helmet light, only a penlight he found in his pocket. Once full darkness falls, which will be soon, he's going to be pretty much blind.

Turning so quickly that he makes himself dizzy, Clay does a rapid, frantic sweep of the terrain that's still visible in the faint light.

There has to be _something._

This is not how he's going to die.

He's going to be Tier One someday, goddammit. He's determined to erase his father's footprints. _Ash Spenser's idiot kid who wandered off and got mauled to death by wolves_ is not exactly the legacy he's been dreaming about ever since he joined the Navy.

Off through the scrubby trees to the west, where the foothills begin and the light is still brightest, Clay catches sight of a few steep, jagged outcrops of stone.

It's the best chance he's got, so he gets moving.

Even that brief pause let the cold sink in deeper, and now Clay is shaking hard, unable to determine how much of that is from cold and how much from pure adrenaline. The howling has mostly died back - maybe it just signaled the beginning of the hunt - but now he hears occasional excited little yips carrying clearly on the brittle-cold air, growing steadily closer as he hauls ass through the iced-over snow.

Clay makes it to the closest wide spire of dark gray rock just ahead of the wolves. There's almost no daylight left. It will have to be enough.

He scrambles up, clawing for cracks and toeholds, climbing half by feel. At one point his gloved fingertips slip off a patch of ice and he swings to the side, heart hammering, world tilting as pain spikes through his brain. Clay clings to the rock with his other hand, jams his boot so hard into a crevice that something in his ankle pops, and somehow manages not to fall to his death.

He forces himself onward until he reaches a ledge that's maybe eight meters above the ground and just big enough to roll onto and sprawl out in an exhausted, shivering heap.

Clay lies there for a while, wheezing, each inhale like liquid fire in his throat and lungs. Below him, the wolves prowl restlessly. He hears huffing breaths, the soft crackle of ice crust beneath massive paws, and the occasional faint whine.

The good news is that the rock face is too sheer for the predators to follow him up. The bad news is that the night has only just begun, it's gonna get colder from here, Clay is well and truly trapped, and he's got no way to call for help.

Flicking on his penlight, Clay confirms that the spire continues its sharp climb upward from the rock shelf where he now lies. From this angle, he doesn't have a chance of determining how far up it goes, and he immediately dismisses the idea of continuing the climb. He barely made it this far without falling, and now it's even darker than it was then.

But if he stays here, stays _still,_ he is going to freeze to death.

Movement. He has to keep moving.

Arms shaking, Clay pushes himself up, ignoring the dull ache from his injured calf and ankle. He sweeps the light from one side of the ledge to another. It runs along the cliff face for probably about four meters in each direction, and juts out just a little farther than the width of his body when he lies flat on his back. Snow clings to the rock in a few places. He wouldn't be surprised if there's clear ice too, invisible against the dark stone.

The ledge is precarious as hell, but Clay has no choice. If he doesn't want to die of hypothermia, he has to get moving again, and then he has to keep moving until the night ends, someone finds him, or he slips and falls and gets ripped apart and consumed by wolves. Whichever comes first.

"Goddammit," Clay mumbles, wincing at how slurred his voice comes out.

Beneath him, there are a few hopeful whines.

"Oh, _shut up,"_ he tells the wolves.

Keeping his shoulder against the rock, he pushes shakily up to his feet and starts pacing, one unsteady step at a time. All the way to the south end of the ledge, careful turn, then back to the north.

Everything else slides away. The world narrows down to Clay's boots on the stone, his shoulder pressed against the cliff, and the narrow strip of illumination provided by the penlight. His breath rasps in and out. His injured leg aches, tries to buckle. He keeps going.

At some point he starts sweating, but that's okay; the triple-layered winter gear is designed to work with his body heat to wick moisture away from his skin and move it to the outside layer. Keeping his core temp from dropping too far is the important thing here.

Clay paces, one foot in front of the other, one end of the ledge and back, and he gets angry.

Fuck this, all of it. Fuck waking up in the frozen wilderness with no goddamn idea how he even got here.

Fuck proving Morrison right about what a useless idiot he is.

Their new team leader pretty openly dislikes him for having the gall to bear the last name Spenser, and Clay's standard response to that sort of situation ("You want to hate me? Fine, I'll give you a _reason_ to hate me") has not exactly helped matters.

Honestly, if Clay dies out here, Brian Armstrong will probably be the only person who gives a shit.

At that thought, the anger twists into something sharper, lancing pain up under Clay's ribs. His grandparents are dead, his mom is... his mom, and his dad is a raging asshole incapable of loving anything except his own reflection.

Clay isn't sure he's ever felt more alone in his entire life. He misses his grandparents, whose ashes he scattered to the wind, and he misses Brian. Is Brian here, somewhere? Looking for him?

What if Brian is already dead and Clay just forgot? Is his head scrambled because he hit it on something, or because he doesn't want to remember what happened to leave him alone and bleeding?

Down on the ground, one of the wolves huffs a frustrated-sounding little bark.

"No. Bad dog." Clay means to snarl the words, but they come out in a listless mumble instead.

He reaches the end of the ledge, turns too quickly, and his bad ankle gives way, boot slipping on snow and ice.

There's a terrifying instant where he reels, his weight teetering over nothing. Blind with panic, Clay throws himself away from the edge, his wounded arm slamming into the wall of the cliff with a bright burst of pain.

He loses his grip on the penlight. It clatters once on the rock shelf and then falls silently to the snow below, landing among the gathered wolves.

Now engulfed in darkness, Clay huddles against the stone at his back, cradles his throbbing arm against his chest, and quietly shakes.

He's going to die here.

And he isn't sure there's a single person left alive who will actually care.


	2. Given Back by Night

Chapter title from _Ancestral Memory_ by Hari Alluri.

* * *

It's nearing nightfall by the time the rest of the team accomplishes the mission objective and makes it back to where they inexplicably lost Clay.

Brian had to use every ounce of self control to lock away the gnawing worry and focus on what had to be done. Now that it's over, with the stealth surveillance tech having been successfully planted, he's having a hard time keeping his mind from presenting him with an endless series of horrible possibilities for why his best friend might not have come back.

This close to the border, they're operating without ISR; Command didn't want to give anyone a reason to get suspicious and go looking for hidden U.S. tech. The lack of overwatch shouldn't have been much of a problem. With no known tangos in the area, their expectation was that this mission should be a relative cakewalk, with little chance of encountering anything more nefarious than empty, frozen wilderness. Just as a precaution, Morrison sent Clay to go high and take a look at the path ahead.

After doing as ordered, Clay radioed back that everything was clear.

And then he stopped responding. They waited as long as Morrison would allow. Clay never returned.

Brian wanted to go after his missing teammate right then. Khan and Feldstein even backed him up on it - which he'll definitely have to tell Clay about when he sees him again - but Morrison was unyielding.

_The mission comes first._

_Spenser is a big boy and can take care of himself. If he couldn't, he sure as hell wouldn't belong out here. Isn't that right, Armstrong?_

The biting, sarcastic edge to Morrison's voice made Brian want to punch him. Grab him by the vest, shake him till his teeth rattled, and remind him that it's his responsibility to keep the men under his command safe, no matter who they happen to be related to.

Of course he didn't do any of that. He just looked at his new team leader, judged that arguing would only piss the man off and make him buckle down harder, and said blandly, "Yes, sir."

Ever since Morrison took over the team, Brian has tried to serve as a buffer between him and Clay, smoothing over the conflicts and easing the transition. That requires staying on Morrison's good side as much as possible.

Fortunately, one of Brian's greatests gifts is an innate ability to rapidly read people, determine what they want or expect him to be, and then, if he's so inclined, essentially shapeshift into that person.

By the time he got old enough to realize no amount of charm was going to convince foster parents to keep him, that particular ability was already well developed. As with many things in his life, Brian chooses to focus on the bright side: maybe he didn't get new parents, but he did end up with a skill that has served him well ever since, helping him find his true family and home in the Navy.

And it's also probably the only reason Clay Spenser hasn't yet been murdered by his new team leader, so there's that.

What Morrison wants is subordinates who are solid and dependable, follow orders but aren't afraid to make respectful suggestions, and take initiative sometimes, but not so often or so aggressively as to make him feel that his authority is being openly challenged.

Brian slid seamlessly into that role pretty much from day one.

Clay, on the other hand, quickly picked up on the fact that Morrison disliked him for his last name, and has been antagonizing the man ever since.

Sometimes even Brian wants to slap him upside the head, because Jesus _Christ,_ does he _have_ to make everything harder for himself?

(Yes. The answer is yes. With Clay, it usually is.)

Brian still isn't even sure what it was that first made him look at Clay Spenser, stubborn and mouthy and carrying an Alaska-sized chip on his shoulder, and go, _Yep, that one. That one's mine._

Maybe it's just because Brian saw something in Clay, some commonality between them: a couple of kids who'd had to fend for themselves, building walls and donning masks for protection. Oh, it manifests itself very differently - Brian's chameleon charm, versus Clay's often combative arrogance - but maybe he recognized a kindred spirit all the same.

Not that Brian ever intends to tell Clay that. His ability to judge what people want him to be, it told him early on that what his new friend needed wasn't someone to trade sob stories with. What Clay Spenser could really use was stability, or at least proximity to it; the belief that it was possible.

And selfishly, what Brian decided Clay needed also just happened to be what he himself already wanted to become.

Brian finally had a chance to be whoever the hell he liked, so he made himself into a kid with a big, loving, chaotic family. A well-adjusted guy whose easy friendliness is just a personality trait, not a hard-earned survival skill. He likes being that person.

He especially likes being that person for Clay, and for that to happen, there has to still _be_ a Clay.

They'll find him. They have to.

The team backtracks, reaching the point in the trail where they last saw Clay, and then they start sweeping out from there, trying to pick up his trail.

As they tramp around in the snow, Morrison makes a few exasperated quips about how they should just give up and head to exfil, but Brian knows he doesn't really mean it. He won't abandon one of his men - not even one he can't stand.

It's Khan who finds the helmet lying beneath a huge tree, partially buried in the snow, broken NODS half ripped off it.

The abandoned pack, radio and rifle.

The footprints.

The blood.

There's only one set of footprints, no indication that anyone else was ever there. Based on what little evidence they have to go on, Brian guesses that Clay fell from the tree, landed on the sharp rocks at the bottom, and then wandered away without most of his gear.

Which, in combination with the blood, lays it out sickeningly clearly: he's hurt, and it's probably bad.

He's been bleeding alone in the cold for _hours,_ and they don't even know where he is.

Brian curls his gloved hands tight, wishing he could feel the bite of fingernails into palms. He forces his lungs to work, breathing calm and steady past the weight of an elephant crushing his chest.

The air tastes viciously cold, sharper than moonshine.

Wherever Clay is, he might be dead by now.

They could have saved him. If they'd gone after him right away... if Brian had just put his foot down, refused to continue the mission...

Morrison drops to his heels and reaches out to touch the abandoned radio, brush his fingers over the blood frozen dark in the snow. "_Shit,"_ he says on a deep exhale, and looks up, catching Brian's gaze. There's just enough light left to make out the deep crease in Morrison's forehead, the guilty way his eyes quickly dart away.

If Clay is dead, Brian will never forgive this. Maybe that's what their team leader saw in his eyes.

They follow the footprints, pausing briefly to flip down their NODs once it grows fully dark. Clay's path meanders drunkenly. Eventually there's less blood in the snow, which Brian hopes indicates that his friend had enough presence of mind to tend his injuries.

The trail leads them out of the deeper woods and onto a small windswept plain to the east of the foothills. There's not much there, just a few scattered small trees with spindly branches.

Brian's throat aches.

_Where the hell were you going, buddy? Why didn't you just stay put?_

Because he couldn't. If he had, he probably would have frozen to death by now. Injured or not, he clearly knew he had to keep moving.

Morrison slides over to walk near Brian. For a moment the only sound is the crunch of their feet in the snow. Then the team leader says in a carefully neutral tone, "I didn't realize he was hurt."

Brian grinds his teeth so hard they ache. He can't quite keep the bladed edge out of his voice when he asks, "What did you think? That he was hiding somewhere just to fuck with you?"

Morrison is quiet for a minute. Then he admits, "Honestly? Yeah. I kind of did."

Brian's laugh sounds like he's been gargling steel wool. "Then you don't know the first damn thing about him." He pauses. "Sir."

It's the first time he's ever talked to Morrison like this. Right now Brian is exhausted and angry and scared, with no will left to keep playing a role. For once, he just is who he is: a man whose best friend could be dying for no good reason.

Morrison's hesitation this time lasts even longer. Finally he says, "Maybe I don't." With a hint of defensiveness, he adds, "But it's not like he's given me a chance to-"

Brian cuts him off. "You lost that chance the minute you judged him by who his father is, _sir._ Let me catch you up on what you missed. Clay is not Ash Spenser. He'll give you shit all day on base, but he doesn't fuck around during missions. He would walk straight into hell for anyone he operates with, regardless of his personal feelings about them. He wants to make it into DEVGRU, and I'd bet you money that he will."

By the end of that brief rant, Brian's voice shakes a little. He takes a deep breath, tries to lock the emotion back down.

Morrison dips his chin in a slight nod, inhales, but gets interrupted by Khan's sharp hiss that pulls them all to a stop.

Khan drops to a crouch, splaying his fingers over something in the snow. "Wolves," he says softly. "They're following him."

Oh, Jesus.

Like this wasn't already bad enough.

They pick up the pace, following the trail as it veers off suddenly toward the west. Around them, the night is crisply silent, not even a hint of motion other than their own. If the wolves are still around, they're being damn quiet. Brian hopes that's a good thing. Prays it isn't because the hunt has already ended.

They jog through one last grove of scrubby conifers, round a bend, and the scene ahead becomes clear. Brian registers what he's seeing in flashes, one quick detail at a time.

The wide spire of rock looming up like a wall.

The dark shapes of the wolves moving quietly around it.

Amidst them, the lone penlight shining up from the snow. Motionless.

Brian's throat locks up. No matter how hard he tries, he can't get air into his lungs.

This isn't right. This can't be how it ends.

Khan yells, lifting his pack over his head to make himself look bigger. An instant later, the others do the same - except Brian, who is still frozen in place.

The wolves want no part of it. They draw back, slide quietly into the darkness, and then there's nothing left to do except go forward and see what they left behind.

It's Morrison's hand on his elbow that finally spurs Brian into motion. He pulls his arm away and walks forward with the others. His face feels numb. His heartbeat echoes in the hollow space inside his head.

There's no ravaged corpse in the snow. No blood, even. Just the light, lying there all by itself, as though it were dropped from-

"Brian?" The voice from above them is weak and ragged, a fragile thread of sound. "Guys?"

As one, they look up.

Clay Spenser is huddled on a ledge, arms wrapped around himself, his back pressed against solid stone. He slides down almost to a sitting position; then, legs trembling violently, pushes himself back up again.

Must be the only way he could figure to keep moving without risking falling to the wolves.

_God,_ Brian loves this stupid, stubborn son of a bitch.

Khan is the most skilled climber among them, so he's the one who goes up with a line so that they can get Spenser down. Brian waits at the bottom. The fine tremors running through his limbs are probably as much from relief as cold.

As soon as Clay is back on solid ground, Brian moves forward, watching anxiously as their medic checks his friend over. Clay is banged up from the fall. He's got some gashes, a nasty concussion and moderate hypothermia, but he's alive. Pale and confused and shaking and _alive._

The medic finishes up, proclaims Clay ambulatory with assistance, and then Brian finally gets to move forward and slide his arm around his friend's shoulders.

"Hey, Bri," Clay mumbles, leaning in as Brian helps him to his feet.

Brian tells himself the sting in his eyes is just from the cold. Clearing his throat, he says, "Hey, man. Saw you doing squats up there. You trying to get a nice ass?"

Clay scoffs weakly. "You _wish_ your ass was as nice as mine."

Brian grins so hard that the air hurts his teeth. "You keep telling yourself that, buddy." He pats Clay's shoulder, supporting much of his friend's weight as they move together through the snow.

"You know," Brian begins thoughtfully, "my papaw always used to say-"

Clay groans, letting his head fall against Brian's shoulder. Brian's laugh rings out loud in the brittle silence of the night.

Holding each other up, they go forward, bright against the cold.


End file.
